The road least pillaged – S&P 500 up 90 percent from bottom but housing values down 30 percent nationwide. Wealthy store most of their wealth in stocks while most Americans have their net worth in housing. 2010 record year in foreclosures and the upcoming lost decade in housing.
There are few investments in the US that are so heavily subsidized like housing. Residential and commercial real estate included benefit from favorable government policies to increase demand. Some of these policies may have merit but a large part of the housing market has been injected with so many perks that the true value of […]
A lesson in college debt – Student loan debt increasing at a rate of $170,000 per minute. Student loan debt will hit $1 trillion in 2012. For-profit schools take the place of subprime mortgages.
College loosely defined is an educational institution or as we are now seeing in the US a place where young people go to dive into a pool of debt. A college education was never a guarantee to a lucrative and well paying career. In a time when the middle class was more robust college was […]
Federal Reserve welcomes a Brave New Economy – how the Fed is robbing the public in open daylight. Maiden Lane Special Purpose Vehicles purchased toxic mortgages like option ARMs and commercial real estate.
The global economy seems to be facing a Brave New World envisioned by Aldous Huxley where the world is operating under a command economy and all citizens are psychologically conditioned from to birth to value consumption. The Federal Reserve is the ultimate spend more than you earn machine. It is amazing that a few hours […]
Retirement account fantasy and middle class erosion – 1 out of 3 Americans has zero dollars in a retirement account. From 1950 to 1989 top 1 percent earned roughly 7 to 8 percent of nationwide income. Today it is inching closer to 20 percent resembling pre-Great Depression levels.
Many Americans live precariously close to the edge of financial insolvency flirting with economic disaster daily. If you casually browse mainstream articles and watch any amount of television you would think that the US still had a vibrant and strong middle class. When we pull back the covers on the current financial situation we realize […]